Midland movie moguls will launch their controversial film about the life and death of former Rolling Stone Brian Jones at Cannes film festival tomorrow.

The film - Stoned - made by Birmingham film company Intandem, looks at the longstanding question of whether Jones died as the result of an accident or was murdered. He was found drowned in the swimming pool of his farmhouse in East Sussex in 1969.

It stars Leo Gregory, Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, David Walliams and features Monet Mazur playing Jones' one-time girlfriend Anita Pallenberg.

John James, non-executive director of Intandem, flew to Cannes last night ahead of this weekend's premiere.

He said: "The reaction from the festival at the moment has been very considerable.

"After the premiere there will be several more scheduled showings throughout the festival, and they are all fully booked already. When you consider that people have only been there a few days, that's very positive. There has been lots of publicity around Cannes, which has generated a lot of interest."

The distribution rights for Stoned have already been snapped up in Japan, Brazil and the Benelux countries for $1.3 million, but Intandem will be selling the rights to distribute the movie around the rest of the world at the festival.

Mr James said: "Our prime target now is the American market which we are hopeful we will break either this week or next week."

He said it was impossible to predict how big the movie would be at this stage.